The Prompt

If your character follows the stream between the mountains to its source, what will they find?

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Jennifer Hudak

Jennifer Hudak is a Nebula-nominated speculative fiction writer whose work can be found in venues such as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and The Sunday Morning Transport. She is a 2018 graduate of the Viable Paradise workshop and a member of the Codex Writers’ Group. Originally from Boston, she now lives with her family in Upstate New York where she teaches yoga, knits pocket-sized animals, and misses the ocean.

Find out more about her at JenniferHudakWrites.com

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The Prompt

“Hibiscus Day” In many cultures, including my own West Indian society, the hibiscus is an auspicious flower.

Linked to everything from the cycle of life, renewal, transformation, the feminine divine, the spiritual plane and even fame and luck, the hibiscus is a temporary beauty. It flowers for only one day, with hybrids that last perhaps three days at most.

Think about the meaning and symbolism of the flower. Its gorgeous, easily bruised petals. Its brief existence. Or think of the rotting flowers at the base of this hardy bush. The wait to see them bloom once again.

Whatever you do, let your feelings lead you rather than your head, as much as you can. Be as weird and outside the box as you wish. Let your imagination breathe. Have fun with it.

Good luck!

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R. S. A. Garcia

R.S.A. is a Nebula and Sturgeon Award winning writer of speculative fiction. She is also the winner of the Machine Intelligence Foundation for Rights and Ethics’ 2023 Media Award, and a Locus, Ignyte and Eugie Foster Award finalist.

Her Amazon Bestselling science fiction mystery, Lex Talionis, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and the Silver Medal for Best Scifi/Fantasy/Horror Ebook from the Independent Publishers Awards (2015).

She has published short fiction in venues such as Clarkesworld Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, Escape Pod, Strange Horizons, The Sunday Morning Transport, and Internazionale Magazine.

Her stories have been long-listed for the British Science Fiction Awards, translated into several languages, and included in a number of anthologies, including the critically acclaimed The Best of World SF, The Best Science Fiction of the Year, The Year’s Best Fantasy, and The Apex Book of World SF.

Her sci-fantasy duology, beginning with The Nightward, is out now from Harper Voyager US. https://www.amazon.com/Nightward-Book-One-Waters-Lethe-ebook/dp/B0CSXFBWRN/

She lives in Trinidad and Tobago with an extended family and too many cats.

R.S.A. was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2021. She is currently in treatment and doing well. If you’d like to help, please donate to her GoFundMe organised by her friends.

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The Prompt

Two characters. One location. There’s one problem and they can’t agree on how to solve it.

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Mary Robinette Kowal

Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of The Spare Man, Ghost Talkers, The Glamourist Histories series, and the Lady Astronaut Universe. She is part of the award-winning podcast Writing Excuses and a four-time Hugo Award winner. Her short fiction appears in Uncanny, Tor.com, and Asimov’s. Mary Robinette, a professional puppeteer, lives in Denver. Visit at maryrobinettekowal.com.

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The Prompt

It is the year 2995. Six hundred years after First Contact with an alien species, life on Earth has been greatly transformed. You live in the bustling space port of Mogadishu, where humans and numerous other species now call home.

The bar you own is nothing special, though you cater to the eclectic taste in beverages from over two hundred worlds. Life is mundane–as mundane as anything ever gets in this teeming metropolis of over 40 million, of which more than a third claim descent from distant star systems. Or dimensions.

That is, until the night you find a very important and powerful alien dignitary slumped over, tentacles still writhing after taking a sip of his drink–poisoned. And quite dead.

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P. Djeli Clark

Phenderson Djéli Clark lives in a small Edwardian castle in New England. And he writes stuff.

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Remember: I don’t recommend posting your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.

 

The Prompt

Take one to two minutes to jot down a list of common idioms, metaphors, or similes–any phrases you might consider overused or cliché.

A quick search yields examples like “paint the town red,” “playing the world’s smallest violin,” and “love is a battlefield.”

Select one and literalize it. Write a story, for example, in which your character(s) really do paint the town red. Why do they do this? What are the expected or unexpected consequences?

For bonus points, try setting challenging limits on your drafting time for this one. Can you get from an opening to an ending in two 25-minute sessions? How about in just 30 or 20 minutes?

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F.E. Choe

F.E. Choe is a Canadian and Korean-American writer whose work has been published in adda, Augur, Clarkesworld, Fractured Lit, and The Moth Magazine. She is a 2023 alum of the Clarion West and Viable Paradise workshops, and an Editor at 100 Word Story. You can find her online at www.fechoe.com.

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Remember: I don’t recommend posting your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.

 

The Prompt

Think of a dear friend or despised enemy. Spell out their first and last names and take a few minutes to jot down as many partial or full anagrams that you can find from the letters. Tip: writing longhand might work best for this whole exercise.

Now, mull over the list of words and consider how they might relate to your person. Hold in your mind a sentence that incorporates at least one of the words. Write that sentence and build a story about your person, making sure to incorporate every single word you’ve mined, no matter how strange or quirky. Do NOT stop to edit along the way!

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Kim Coleman Foote

Kim Coleman Foote is the author of Coleman Hill, named a finalist for the Carol Shields Prize, NAACP Image Award, and Audie Award, and long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Born and raised in New Jersey, Kim has been writing fiction since the age of seven(ish). In her spare time, she indulges in genealogy, dancing, singing, and word puzzles.

Website
Instagram/X/Facebook: @kimcolemanfoote

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Remember: I don’t recommend posting your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.